Monday, December 21, 2015

Get ready folks, it's going to be just awful

by digby

This is from Red State, but it's making the rounds pretty heavily:

[D]uring the debate, wee old white lady Hillary Clinton took one heck of a bathroom break. It took her so long to come back that they went ahead and started without her. After what seemed like hours, she finally returned, although to be fair each and every two minute stretch of the debate seemed like hours.

Does this really matter? I’d say it … Depends®.

Did Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 94% taking a sip of water matter? It sure did to Democrats. We still hear about it all the time, nearly three years later. So I guess that matters.

Did John McCain’s age matter? You know it did. They brought it up more frequently than Rudy Giuliani brought up 9/11. They never stopped talking about his age. They still, in fact, have the temerity to talk about the age of current GOP candidates. So it seems that matters.

Imagine if McCain had been late to return to the debate because he was in the bathroom. Seriously, they would not only bring up his age but they’d make jokes about his time as POW and whether he was permanently damaged or afraid to leave the toilet.

Imagine if Donald Trump came on stage late and the audience cheered. We’d be treated to think pieces about how it is impossible for him to do wrong in the eyes of the Republican electorate, who wet themselves every time he burps. But Hillary comes traipsing on stage with toilet paper metaphorically stuck to her orthopedic shoes and you’re a jerk if you bring it up.

I'm sure Sanders will be hit with ageism as well if he becomes the nominee. And it wouldn't matter if theirs was Trump who is older than Clinton.

As the third Democratic debate faded to a five-minute commercial break, Hillary Clinton had exactly one minute and 45 seconds to walk out of the gymnasium at St. Anselm College to the ladies’ restroom and one minute and 45 seconds to return to her place on stage.

Not a lot of wiggle room.

With the men’s room significantly closer to the debate stage, Mrs. Clinton’s male opponents, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, made it back quicker and, well, it takes women longer, as Mrs. Clinton pointed out after returning slightly late from a commercial break during the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas.

She could have whined like the Republicans did about their green rooms and the temperature but she just soldiered on instead. Not that any of that matters. You get the gist of what the right is saying about Clinton's age with that post. Trump's actually being the subtle one. So far ...

By the way, it's not true that ABC was locked into starting the debate and could do nothing else. They handle live TV all the time, which is often unpredictable, obviously. In fact, they had a bunch of analysts vamping for half an hour after the announced time. They just weren't nimble enough to deal with it.

The Holiday fundraiser continues and I hope you'll consider throwing a little something in the kitty.